IA IA - David Schultz, 53, Wall Lake, 21 November 2023

[katydid23]

“The next day I hadn’t heard from him, which is not unusual, you know I don’t know when he’s loading and unloading. The guy he hauls for knocked at my door saying hey we can’t find david have you heard from him. He said he didn’t unload the hogs I said so he’s loaded? And that alerts me right there cause he would never pull over to sleep load, he just wouldn’t,” said Sarah.
---------

Why did 'the guy he hauls for' have to come out to their house to ask where DS was? Did he only have his address and not her cell number as an emergency contact? Now that most folks have separate cell phones instead of communal landlines, I'd think the person he worked for would have another contact phone number.

Maybe nothing, but that just struck me as curious.

Yes, good point.

And it's always seemed a bit odd to me that he didn't check on him at home until the next day.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

Yes, good point.

And it's always seemed a bit odd to me that he didn't check on him at home until the next day.

As I understand it, "the next day" just means it was the day after Sarah last saw David.

She last saw him at 7.30PM and he disappeared in the early hours of the next morning. The person David was hauling for then went to the house later that day when David didn't complete the job or make any contact. It was only a few hours before people started to wonder what had happened.

 

[LC2]

As the wife of a truck driver, what are your thoughts about what kind of a thing could have happened at the drop off location?

What kind of a situation could have been triggered? I do lean towards this being foul play but I am unsure WHY, since it doesn't seem like a robbery or truck jacking.

Are there typically cameras that could have picked anything up?

I was also wondering about cameras. Seems like if there are such strict protocols to get in and out of the barns, things would be also monitored with cameras. What I find interesting is that nothing has been reported as to who actually saw him last. I realize we don’t have all the information that LE has, but let’s face it…small town rumors, gossip, social media?? I’m just surprised someone hasn’t said anything about that, that I’ve seen anyway. Just an observation.

 

[Facinatingtimes]

Maybe an accident at the unloading site and those that were scared trying to cover it up by moving his truck? However, the jacket in the ditch is perplexing and I feel like someone would have confessed by now if it were an accident. Hope LE tried to get some DNA from the truck…

 

[Facinatingtimes]

“The next day I hadn’t heard from him, which is not unusual, you know I don’t know when he’s loading and unloading. The guy he hauls for knocked at my door saying hey we can’t find david have you heard from him. He said he didn’t unload the hogs I said so he’s loaded? And that alerts me right there cause he would never pull over to sleep load, he just wouldn’t,” said Sarah.
---------

Why did 'the guy he hauls for' have to come out to their house to ask where DS was? Did he only have his address and not her cell number as an emergency contact? Now that most folks have separate cell phones instead of communal landlines, I'd think the person he worked for would have another contact phone number.

Maybe nothing, but that just struck me as curious.

I thought twice about this too. I guess the truck didn’t have a gps for the owner to track it? Maybe the “the guy he hauls for” was genuinely concerned and wanted to alert his wife in person?

 

[flossieflo]

P

“The next day I hadn’t heard from him, which is not unusual, you know I don’t know when he’s loading and unloading. The guy he hauls for knocked at my door saying hey we can’t find david have you heard from him. He said he didn’t unload the hogs I said so he’s loaded? And that alerts me right there cause he would never pull over to sleep load, he just wouldn’t,” said Sarah.
---------

Why did 'the guy he hauls for' have to come out to their house to ask where DS was? Did he only have his address and not her cell number as an emergency contact? Now that most folks have separate cell phones instead of communal landlines, I'd think the person he worked for would have another contact phone number.

Maybe nothing, but that just struck me as curious.

We don’t own hogs, but we do feed cattle, so maybe I can clear a few of these questions up.

My husband primarily feeds for the same people year round. When it’s time for cattle to be delivered, they arrive at any time of the day or night, depending on where they come from and when the pen they are going to gets emptied.

Some guys contract with the same truckers all the time, but the owners of the animals or the feeders are in no way bosses to the truckers. Even though my husband is familiar with the truckers that regularly drive, he would have no idea what their wife’s emergency contact number is, most likely doesn’t even know where they live if they aren’t local to us.

**Edit to add: not all feeders do it the way we do, so DS could be an actual employee, just sharing what most people we know do

 

[TL4S]

I suspect the owner tried calling DS multiple times, and when he got no answer, and nobody else had seen or heard from him either, the owner decided to go to his house to look for him. Jmo.

 

[Joe Friday]

I was also wondering about cameras. Seems like if there are such strict protocols to get in and out of the barns, things would be also monitored with cameras. What I find interesting is that nothing has been reported as to who actually saw him last. I realize we don’t have all the information that LE has, but let’s face it…small town rumors, gossip, social media?? I’m just surprised someone hasn’t said anything about that, that I’ve seen anyway. Just an observation.

Depending on where David loaded the piggy's, it may have been a very large scale hog operation run by a huge corporation. David's wife said he was doing another Seaboard load, which is a large scale meat processor.

These huge corporations set up a processing plant, then set up large scale farrowing and feeding operations or partner with other large scale farms to supply animals for the processing plant. Where they set up a large farming operation they buy up the small farms around them to have enough acreage for crops to feed the number of animals they are raising at a single location.

Many of the workers that are hired at these large farming operations and meat processing plants are in the US on work visas and very few speak English. Some of these people may not even have social media accounts. Many of the workers rent and live in the old farm houses on the small farms the corporation bought up. This may be the reason there seems to be no small town gossip.

Apparently David was moving a load of young pigs from a farrowing operation to a feeding operation. Smaller family run farms would have a seperate farrowing and feeding barn at the same location.

 

[JerseyWasHome2]

Maybe an accident at the unloading site and those that were scared trying to cover it up by moving his truck? However, the jacket in the ditch is perplexing and I feel like someone would have confessed by now if it were an accident. Hope LE tried to get some DNA from the truck…

It's interesting to read comments above that something may have happened at the unloading site/destination.

That makes me wonder how many people would have been working there at that hour of the night, though. Surely more than one or two? Because his large truck would have been seen entering the premises, then whatever happened, happened, and if other employees drove his truck off-site, still loaded with pigs, wouldn't the rest of the employees wonder why? Is it possible that at that hour, only one or two helpers would have been there to make this even possible?

 

[NervousNellie]

I believe David owned his truck.

 

[Interested_But_Confused]

Personally I think it's most likely that David is either still in the vicinity of the truck and just hasn't be found, that he was taken from where the truck was found by someone else, or that he planned his disappearance and had a way to escape. And I don't really believe it's the last option.

To me it just doesn't feel like a situation where something happened at a different location and the truck was dumped, though that's obviously possible.

 

[Joe Friday]

I believe David owned his truck.

It's also my understanding is David owned the truck and brokered or got his loads from someone else. Apparenlty David didn't own the trailer. That's pretty common.

They guy that came to David's house and spoke with his wife most likely had a contract with Seaboard to move the hogs from place to place. He then contracts or hires local truckers like David to haul the loads.

 

[fridaybaker]

Thanks JoeFriday. Good info!

 

[KMouse]

It's also my understanding is David owned the truck and brokered or got his loads from someone else. Apparenlty David didn't own the trailer. That's pretty common.

They guy that came to David's house and spoke with his wife most likely had a contract with Seaboard to move the hogs from place to place. He then contracts or hires local truckers like David to haul the loads.

So it sounds like there may not be steady work if it's paid per load. Is there some competition amongst drivers for getting the jobs? Could somebody have been angry with David because he got the work and they didn't?

 

[Joe Friday]

New article, but nothing new.

On a side note. I get a kick out of the articles that get written by various news outlets and how much misinformation they can create. Reading this article, one would get the impression the search for David is now centered around a motel in Sac City. The Cajun Navy only relocated their headquarters to the motel from what I have read elsewhere.

For the past few days the search was centered around a truck stop, Sparky’s, near Rockwell City. The Cajun Navy, a search and rescue group from Louisiana directing the search, has now moved to the search to an area around a motel in Sac City.

Volunteers expand search area to find missing Sac County man

SAC CITY, Iowa — The search for missing truck driver David Schultz, of Lake View, is still going more than a week after he disappeared. His hog truck was found, stopped in the middle of the r…

who13.com

 

[stickb0y7]

Is anyone here more familiar with livestock trucking? My brother drives truck in Iowa but not for livestock but I know he usually drives the cab home and picks up trailers. Would David have had to go pick up the "Brown" livestock trailer before going to the Eagle Grove pick-up? I did some searching around and there's a "B Bar R Livestock Transportation" owned by someone with the last name of Brown whose address is near Denison nearby. I wonder if he went there first and then to pickup. That would have added an hour to travel time from his house to pick-up, putting it at 2.5 hours after 7:30 to arrive at the earliest, so 10p.

 

[Joe Friday]

So it sounds like there may not be steady work if it's paid per load. Is there some competition amongst drivers for getting the jobs? Could somebody have been angry with David because he got the work and they didn't?

I don't think there would be any competition. Things go in cycles. Plant corn on this day and the farmers knows in a certain number of days or weeks when the corn will be ready for harvest.

Same goes for raising animals for slaughter. Little piggy's are born and in a certain number of weeks they will be ready for slaughter. Given this information the number of pigs that need to be raised to supply the meat processing plant can be figured. And the number of loads it will take to move those piggy's from one place to another and how often there will be a load can also be figured. So the broker can figure how many trucks are needed to keep up with the work load. The broker wouldn't hire more trucks than loads or it would create problems for himself keeping drivers. Keep everyone busy hauling loads, which keeps everyone happy.

It sounds like David was pretty busy and there was likely a shortage of trucks to haul the available loads. If someone wasn't getting loads, it was because they were irresponsible and couldn't be counted on.

JMO

 

[momof2wats]

As the wife of a truck driver, what are your thoughts about what kind of a thing could have happened at the drop off location?

What kind of a situation could have been triggered? I do lean towards this being foul play but I am unsure WHY, since it doesn't seem like a robbery or truck jacking.

Are there typically cameras that could have picked anything up?

It's possible that some sort accident happened at the drop off location that resulted in injury and the employee(s) got scared and moved the truck to make it appear that he never arrived there. Or like I mentioned before that location is vey close to his home (less than 20 miles) in a rural area. I'm sure he knows the farmer/persons where he was to deliver and likely delivered there in the past. So possibly he and the employee(s) at that location had some kind of personal issues with each other and an argument occurred and maybe went too far. Those are just my thoughts on the possibilities at the drop off location.

 

[StarRemy8]

“The next day I hadn’t heard from him, which is not unusual, you know I don’t know when he’s loading and unloading. The guy he hauls for knocked at my door saying hey we can’t find david have you heard from him. He said he didn’t unload the hogs I said so he’s loaded? And that alerts me right there cause he would never pull over to sleep load, he just wouldn’t,” said Sarah.
---------

Why did 'the guy he hauls for' have to come out to their house to ask where DS was? Did he only have his address and not her cell number as an emergency contact? Now that most folks have separate cell phones instead of communal landlines, I'd think the person he worked for would have another contact phone number.

Maybe nothing, but that just struck me as curious.

I thought that as well but then thought maybe he didn't have the wife's cell phone number and if DS wasn't answering his he decided to drive all the way to their home. If he was looking for DS why go to his house and not where the drop off was supposed to be or did he go to both? DS heading slightly north instead of south as that was where Sac City appears to be on the map now doesnt seem as odd if you think of the surrounding areas where a farm would be located being referred to as Sac City as it is the closest so maybe it was a farm just north of Sac City. But did his 'the guy he hauls for' not know where the drop off was or not go there first to see what was going on?

 

[momof2wats]

“The next day I hadn’t heard from him, which is not unusual, you know I don’t know when he’s loading and unloading. The guy he hauls for knocked at my door saying hey we can’t find david have you heard from him. He said he didn’t unload the hogs I said so he’s loaded? And that alerts me right there cause he would never pull over to sleep load, he just wouldn’t,” said Sarah.
---------

Why did 'the guy he hauls for' have to come out to their house to ask where DS was? Did he only have his address and not her cell number as an emergency contact? Now that most folks have separate cell phones instead of communal landlines, I'd think the person he worked for would have another contact phone number.

Maybe nothing, but that just struck me as curious.

I don't find it odd that the guy he hauls for showed up at his house. My husbands employer doesn't have my phone number (maybe on his job application from years ago). We live in a rural area as well so I'm sure my husbands employer would seek me out in person. Or maybe he would have his secretary message me on FB if they needed to contact me in regard to an emergency. So I don't find that odd at all. Being married to a truck driver is a life style that most people do not understand. There is no schedule for work, there is no schedule on how much pay they will bring home each week, they do not know where they are going or when they will be home. Things in the trucking industry tend to change quickly. I go days sometimes without talking to or texting my husband. That's just the way it is sometimes between my schedule and his schedule. I hate to call/text and wake him up if he is sleeping. And when he is awake he is driving so he can't call/text or when he is available to text/call me he knows that I am sleeping or at work myself. Truck drivers just have crazy schedules and their families learn to adjust.